U.S. MSB Daily News
USMSB.com – The Stablecoin Standards Authority is turning up the heat on Washington.
The SSA said Monday it has filed a sweeping multi-agency petition urging U.S. regulators to align their rollout of the newly enacted GENIUS Act — and to take a harder line on offshore dollar stablecoins, especially Tether’s USDT.
In a petition sent to the Treasury Department (including FinCEN), the Federal Reserve, the OCC, the FDIC and the NCUA, the SSA called for a coordinated federal approach to police not only stablecoin issuers but also the settlement infrastructure that processes payment stablecoin transactions.
The group argues that without consistent rules across agencies, the emerging U.S. payment stablecoin framework could become fragmented — leaving major gaps in oversight.
SSA describes itself as an independent standards platform within the Federal Money Services Business Association, focused on strengthening governance, transparency and reliability for U.S. dollar–denominated stablecoins.
Two red flags
The petition spotlights two risks that SSA says threaten the credibility of the GENIUS framework.
First: large offshore, dollar-referenced stablecoin arrangements.
SSA claims that continued U.S. inaction toward major offshore issuers — “particularly USDT and its related issuing entities” — is hard to square with the goals of the GENIUS Act and the Bank Secrecy Act. In the group’s view, no private issuer should be able to operate a globally circulating, dollar-branded “quasi-bank” outside meaningful U.S. prudential supervision and BSA/AML and sanctions oversight.
Second: settlement-layer anonymity.
Even with tighter issuer rules, SSA warns that stability and financial integrity can be undermined if the blockchain nodes that validate, sequence, settle or route payment stablecoin transactions remain insufficiently identified or supervised.
To close that gap, SSA is pressing for “On-chain Node KYC” and a federally administered Node Registry for stablecoin settlement infrastructure that has a “material U.S. nexus.”
What SSA wants regulators to do
In plain terms, the petition urges regulators to:
- Clarify how GENIUS and the BSA apply to dollar-referenced stablecoin activity with a material U.S. connection.
- Establish clear standards for permitted and registered foreign issuers.
- Review the USDT issuer’s reserves, governance and financial integrity controls in a coordinated, cross-border effort.
- Issue FinCEN and interagency guidance treating USDT-like arrangements as high-risk for AML/CFT and sanctions compliance.
- Maintain a public registry of licensed and approved payment stablecoin issuers.
- Build a formal Node KYC regime and a federal Node Registry for settlement-layer oversight.
A bigger doctrine behind the push
SSA also framed the petition within a broader FedMSB strategic concept known as “CIFB — Clearing Illegal Financial Black Markets,” which casts stablecoin and settlement oversight as part of a wider effort to limit illicit financial channels without stifling lawful innovation.
‘Safe, credible, competitive’
“SSA’s petition is designed to support a safe, credible, and competitive U.S. stablecoin ecosystem,” said Peter Tang, a member of the SSA Steering Board.
Tang said the group supports GENIUS implementation that encourages responsible innovation while ensuring that large offshore stablecoin arrangements with substantial U.S. ties don’t remain beyond meaningful prudential and financial-crime oversight.
He added that the effectiveness of the U.S. stablecoin perimeter depends on addressing settlement-layer anonymity through node identification requirements and continuous supervisory visibility.
The petition is available through FedMSB.org, according to the SSA.
For the MSB world, the takeaway is simple: the stablecoin fight is shifting from just who issues the token to who runs the rails — and SSA wants Washington to police both.
U.S. MSB Daily News
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